Usana Scam, the bottom line

Whether or not Usana can be called a scam or legitimate all comes down to this point. Are profits derived more from sale of product to consumer? Or from sale of "opportunity" to potential Usana members?

If it is the former, Usana is like any accepted business. It doesn't matter that it is built on MLM, which would not then be an inherently evil system. Usana is making it's money by selling to people who want products for their health. Usana just prefers the marketing advantages that MLM offers.

However, if it is the latter, Usana is absolutely an unsustainable pyramid scam. In my previous post, you can see exactly why that is.

Usana is set up in such a way that it is impossible to determine this quantitatively. Usana reps join, and continue their membership by buying products. There is no "fee" for joining in so many words. In fact you buy a pack of products, and the business center in your name comes with it.

But speaking qualitatively from my experience with Usana reps, and at Usana meetings and trainings, recruitment is far more emphasized than selling. It would be very surprising to me if their primary source of profits was not recruitment of new members. Although they join by buying the product, this would seem to be a loophole that allows them to be counted as customers.

Ok, let's go back to the beginning of what I was saying. In the first scenario I mentioned, Usana is a legit business selling products to consumers, with recruitment being a secondary source of income. The business is sustained by it's customers. This means stability. We don't have a system of customers becoming reps, thus saturating the market and increasing the demand for customers while decreasing the supply. But there is still something unsettling. I mentioned earlier that this would mean Usana is using the unique advantages of MLM. What are these advantages?

Let me make it clear that my focus is not to trash talk MLM in general. This entire blog is about Usana. Personally I don't really like MLM, although it could, in theory be set up in such a way that it is legit. My problem is MLM's advantage: trust.

You see, MLM's typically take advantage of one thing that friends and family have, that typical marketing (TV, magazine, billboard) doesn't. And that is trust. The tendency here is that this unique advantage allows for a much higher profit margin. In other words, friends and family can convince you to pay much more than you might otherwise pay for the same product, if you saw it on TV for example. A friend could tell you "This is amazing! It costs more than other brands, but it is definitely worth it!" And you believe your friend. After all, your friend has no reason to lie to you. Unless of course they're in an MLM, and they're making a profit off of you by ... let's not say lying, but rather "modifying their attitude." This was something I was told to do at the first training I went to, among other deceptive techniques. I was told to be positive at all times, whether or not I was really sure of what I was saying. Never mind the fact I hadn't yet been paid a cent from Usana, I had to pretend it was the greatest thing I could be doing, certainly superior to any job with a wage. Yes, this was more about selling the opportunity than the product.

Back to that, although I was never trained how to sell the product. If I were selling it, I would have to tell my friends that they should buy it. I would have to tell them that it was better than competing products. But how could I, when I have little knowledge of the nutritional industry? Usana claims superiority from several sources, but I would have to do a lot of research first to make sure these claims mean what they sound like, or I would definitely be deceiving my friends. And then it's me and Usana who make a profit at their expense. So maybe I bring them in so it's not so much at their expense anymore. Oh wait, now we're getting back to case #2. Darn! It's so hard to avoid that in MLM's isn't it?